


Blood And Steel

by Anxiety_Elemental



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Illustrated, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-02-23 19:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18708736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anxiety_Elemental/pseuds/Anxiety_Elemental
Summary: Elsewhere, the Shimada clan is dismantled in one night, and its disgraced son strikes a deal to save his life.Elsewhere, a dying member of the notorious Deadlock gang is stolen away, rebuilt with new purpose.(In another place, another time, they meet.)





	1. Sever, Side A

**Author's Note:**

> So my planned big fic project is stalled, and clearly the solution is to start another big fic project.
> 
> The concept for this is two fold:
> 
> 1) There’s not enough mcgenji i’m dying squirtle
> 
> 2) I’m a massive, massive slut for role swaps
> 
> Warnings for this chapter include forced incarceration and canon typical violence. If there's warnings you want me to add or I've otherwise neglected now or in the future please let me know.

Genji is exhausted, bruised, and handcuffed to a table in an empty room. He was attacked and dragged from his home in the night by unknown assailants. They’d disarmed and restrained him with ease, stuffed him inside a truck and then left him in this room with no idea where he is now. These people must be law enforcement of some kind, otherwise he would be dead.

 

He thinks about how real handcuffs are much sharper than ones he’s worn before, usually padded, sometimes fuzzy, and for things much more fun. He doesn’t try to think about what might’ve happened to Hanzo, who might have been awake at that time of night, or to his father, bedridden with illness. He doesn’t know if they’re alive. He doesn’t know if _anyone_ else is alive. He tries to think about something else, anything else.

 

The door opens, a man in dark body armor and a scowl sits down across from Genji.

 

“My name is Reyes, and I have some questions for you,” he says, dropping a holopad between them with a loud clatter of plastic on metal.

 

Genji says nothing, his hands curl into fists.

 

“Don’t want to talk? You sure about that?” Reyes says, “We know you weren’t very involved in the family business, but we can link you to at least one murder and several drug related charges. That’s still enough to put you away for a long time.”

 

Genji continues to say nothing.

 

“But,” Reyes adds, “I would like to make a deal with you. Give us information about the rest of your clan, come work for us, and you get to stay out of jail. How’s that sound?”

 

Genji sits up straight, looks Reyes in the eye. He doesn’t know who these people are exactly, but he’s decided he doesn’t care. His fear warps into anger at his words, turns into acid in his throat, “What makes you think I’d sell out my own family? Do you really think my loyalty can be bought?”

 

“Because you aren’t as invested in their business,” Reyes says, “You did your initiation, but you haven’t participated in the Shimada’s real work. Instead you spent your days and nights in arcades and clubs, and as little time as possible in the castle and with your family. You sure you really want to go down with them?”

 

Genji’s resolve doesn’t waver. If they’ve done any research on the clan, and these people must have to conduct such an efficient attack on their home, such information would not be hard to find. He doesn’t care. It changes nothing.

 

“Also,” Reyes taps on the holopad, “I don’t think your loyalty to them is deserved.”

 

“Don’t you dare presume to understand,” Genji snaps, “What would you understand about - ”

 

He stops as the holopad begins to play a sound file, and he immediately recognizes the voices. Familiar, speaking Japanese, the castle must’ve been bugged, but how?

 

_“...we need to talk about Genji,”_ says the voice of a Shimada Elder, the audio quality makes it sound as if he’s in the room with them, _“What do you plan to do with him if your father dies?”_

 

_“He will be seen to,”_ says Hanzo’s voice, _“He is not completely unreasonable, and father has not passed yet.”_

 

_“You need to plan for the future, you cannot ignore the problem the way your father has. And that problem must be corrected or eliminated.”_

 

_“You aren’t suggesting -”_

 

_“This is not a suggestion,”_ the Elder interrupts sharply, _“Your brother is a disgrace, he’s done enough to shame us already. Soon you may lead the clan and you cannot allow weakness to fester under your rule. Diseased flesh must be cut away, lest it poison the rest of the body, do you understand?”_

 

Empty static, and Genji waits for Hanzo’s voice, waits for his brother to stand up for him, to deflect to say something, anything. The silence seems to stretch for minutes.

 

_“I understand,”_ says Hanzo, with perfect calm.

 

_“You’ll rein him in, or do your duty to our clan if necessary?”_

 

_“Yes.”_

 

Reyes taps the holopad to pause the audio, and leans back in the chair, crossing his arms. “Don’t speak a word of Japanese myself, but our translators were very sure on what these two were planning,” Reyes’ expression is soft in a way he hadn’t expected. Genji would’ve expected him to be smug, but this is somehow worse, pity from a stranger, “You sure you want to get locked up for them now?”

 

Genji feels like he’s swallowed a rock, a terrible weight in the pit of his stomach.

 

“That was fake,” Genji hates how his voices shakes, “It is not real, you are trying to trick me. It is not going to work.”

 

Reyes sighs, and stands up, “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” Reyes says, picking up the holopad, “Should be plenty of time to think about what you want to tell me.”

 

Reyes leaves, and Genji wants nothing more than to sink into the floor and disappear.

 

\---

\------

\---

 

The guards haven’t spotted Genji.

 

He snuck in, grabbed the data Blackwatch needed, and snuck back out without even a hint of trouble. He’d studied the building’s blueprints and security protocols carefully, knew every guard patrol and every security camera’s blind spot. He’s one of their top infiltrators for a reason.

 

Now he sits on a rooftop, hunched over to blend in with the nighttime shadows, watching the patrols in the courtyard below. Waiting for the opening he needs to slip off the property. His backup is nearby, no doubt watching him from a nearby rooftop. The thought only spurs him onward, he doesn't like to think of those eyes on him.

 

He looks down at his exit, a walled garden, overgrown and neglected, at the edge of the property. He runs soundlessly across the outer wall, and stops, spotting six guards, loitering just outside the walls, right where the gap in security usually is. Some are talking and one is on their phone, all likely on break when they weren’t supposed to.

 

If he doesn’t move soon another guard patrol will spot him, and he’ll be trapped.

 

His backup has the same thought.

 

Six distant shots, each unaware guard falling before they have a chance to react, each with a neat bullet hole in their skulls. Genji leaps over the last wall and lands among the bodies.

 

He spots a dark figure climbing down a fire escape from a nearby building, and drops down next to Genji. Two points of red light look at him from under the shadow of a hat.

 

 

“Looks like we’re done here,” says his backup, in a mechanical voice.

 

“We are,” Genji says, and he hears footsteps coming closer, “It is time to leave.”

 

They reach the extraction point without further incident. Their dropship is waiting for them, and they board without a word to the pilot or each other. There will be trouble, Genji thinks as he straps in, Reyes will chew him out for failing anticipate unexpected breaks in protocol, and he’ll be right. It was sloppy.

 

Genji glances up at his backup, sitting on the opposite side of the dropship, legs stretched out, arms crossed, hat tipped over his face. Does he sleep? Can he sleep? Genji has no idea how cyborgs work, at least not one with such extensive damage, and he’s never asked. He doesn’t plan to.

 

McCree doesn’t like to talk about it anyway.


	2. Sever, Side B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On today's episode of "I Have No Idea How Organized Crime Works"
> 
> Warnings include sensory deprivation (of the unfun kind), descriptions of severe injuries, and drugging.

Ashe steps back to admire her work: a new set of wanted posters lining the break room wall. All their bounties had gone up by at least another ten thousand, and Ashe’s is still the highest by a large margin. She beams at the scowling faces on the posters, like an artist proud of a new painting.

 

“Told ya we could add ten grand before the end of May,” she grins at Jesse, and holds out an expectant hand.

 

Jesse grumbles, and fishes out a crumpled twenty from a jacket pocket. Ashe laughs as she takes it, “Told ya not to doubt us,” she gloats, flopping down on the couch next to him, “I knew that last heist was gonna make it.”

 

The bets weren’t about the money, Deadlock was flourishing and neither of them were hurting for cash. They were challenges, to each other, to the whole gang, to do more and be more. There had been a close call a couple years back, Jesse and a few others were almost caught when a bad tip let them into the jaws of a sting. They never found out who had been the ones to nearly catch them, but their intel must not have been up to par. They underestimated Jesse and the others, and they escaped. The gang regrouped, gotten smarter, and now they were untouchable.

 

“We’re starting to get more national attention, you see the headlines? ‘The Infamous Deadlock Gang Strikes Again!’ ‘Deadlock Gang Terrorizes Arizona! ‘Authorities Unable to Contain Deadlock Gang!’” Ashe says, there’s a glitter in her eye, the kind she gets when she talks about the gang’s success, their fame, “Everyone knows who we are, Jesse, we’re famous,” she pauses and frowns, lips pursed as she considers the wall, “I should start adding news articles too.”

 

Jesse shrugs, he’s never been one for flaunting his skills or achievements, figures they should speak for themselves. This was more Ashe’s thing.

 

He looks at the wall, at the crisp posters, the numbers that get higher and higher, “You ever think about...” he chews on the end of his cigar, trying to find the right word, “Retiring?”

 

Ashe stares at him, as if he’d suggested she trade in her bike for a pogo stick, and then laughs, “Why the hell would I be thinking about something like that? We practically own half the state, I’m not gonna stop now,” she gives him a Look, “You ain’t getting cold feet on me?”

 

“Nah,” Jesse leans back into the couch and crosses his arms, “You’d probably miss your best sharpshooter too much.”

 

“Yeah, I guess I keep you around for a reason,” she says, elbowing him in the ribs, “Well, you wanna bail and go live on a farm again, be my guest.”

 

“I’d probably die of boredom,” Jesse admits, “I suppose I could stay and rob some banks with you.”

 

“We do trains sometimes,” Ashe says, “And jewelry stores. And trucks. And remember that one time we robbed a ranch and stole those horses? Pretty sure the triplets don’t even want to look at a horse ever again.”

 

Jesse laughs, “I remember that one,” which was a miracle, since they’d all been drunk out of their minds. It was the closest they’d come to dying in a long time, almost getting trampled by large, brainless, panicking animals, more dangerous than their real crime sprees.

 

Their real crime sprees involve surprising civilian targets, or military convoys where the security is spread too thin, resources still scarce after the Crisis. The Deadlock Gang are ambush predators, they don’t go looking for fair fights.

 

(A small voice asks if this was what he really wanted.)

 

He glances back up at the wanted posters, and looks into the scowling face on his poster, the list of offenses and the price on his head.

 

(He ignores it.)

 

\---

\------

\---

 

Everything is numb, and far away.

 

His thoughts glide around the inside of his skull, formless and directionless.

 

Everything is dark, and Jesse can’t quite understand why. He tries to open his eyes.

 

He can’t.

 

Fear swells in his throat, his breathing fast and shallow as his thoughts crystalize into terror. He tries to reach up but something is wrong with his right arm too, he can’t move it. The whole limb is numb as if made of stone. He tries to raise his left arm instead, but the movements are weak, his hand shakes, he doesn’t know what’s wrong can’t remember what happened -

 

“Please don’t strain yourself!” says a feminine voice he doesn’t recognize, from somewhere to his right. It sounds muffled, as if from the other side of a thin wall, “Relax, you are safe here. Can you take some deep breaths for me, please?”

 

Jesse stops struggling, his breaths coming out as shaky wheezes. He doesn't feel any more safe.

 

“My name is Doctor Angela Ziegler, can you hear me?” says the voice, enunciating her words carefully, which makes her distant voice easier to understand.

 

“...Hear ya,” Jesse says, though his own voice is raw and strained.

 

“Are you in pain?”

 

Jesse must be laying on a bed, but he can barely feel it, a sensation like floating, as if he were laying on a cloud. He must be drugged, and the thought passes by without any potential implications sinking in. “No,” he says.

 

“You are in a hospital,” the doctor explains, he’s already forgotten her name, “You were found very badly injured, and you were brought here where you are being treated. You’re on painkillers, which is why you might be feeling strange. You are safe here, you’re going to be okay. Do you understand?”

 

Where was here? Who were these people? He tries to think of what could’ve happened but he comes up empty.

 

“I know it’s hard,” the doctor says when he doesn’t answer, “But I need you to trust me. You’ll be taken care of to be best of our ability.”

 

“How...” he stops, as something in his head clicks into place. He doesn’t need to finish the question.

 

He remembers. He remembers everything.

 

There’s screaming, gunshots and screaming and he’s cornered splintered bone and bursts of pain and blood and the last thing he saw before -

 

There’s shouting, a sharp prick in his arm, and his body grows heavy. His thrashing slows and stops, his head is lost in a dreamless black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesse and Ashe in Deadlock more like Crime BFFs
> 
> And now I need to write something where drunk dumbass baby Jesse and Ashe try to steal horses


	3. Graft, Side A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day I’ll have Hanzo in a fic and not spend the time viciously dunking on him.
> 
> Today is not that day.
> 
> Warnings include implied drug use.

“Orange suits you,” Genji smirks, and Hanzo’s glare could peel paint.

 

They’re sitting at a metal table with a prison guard standing behind Hanzo. The prison was drab and covered in cameras, and Genji didn’t particularly want to be here at all. But he wanted to see his brother.

 

“You betrayed us,” Hanzo snarls, shoulders stiff and hands flat on the table.

 

Instead all he finds is sour disappointment.

 

Genji shrugs, the gesture more casual than the setting warrants, “Is was that or go to prison, not much of a choice.”

 

“How quickly you forget the meaning of loyalty,” Hanzo growls, “When they asked you to talk you should’ve bit your tongue until you bled out.”

 

“I know you wanted me dead anyway,” Genji says, “You were going to kill me.”

 

Hanzo withers, looking down at the table. His anger atrophies and now he seemed small and lost, something Genji’s not seen from him since they were small. Genji couldn’t help but feel a moment of sadness for his brother, always ambitious and prideful, now locked away in a small box. Part of him still wondered if Reyes had lied to him that night, had still hoped it wasn’t true.

 

“You don’t deny it,” Genji says, quietly.

 

The moment evaporates and Hanzo glares back up at him, quickly flying back into anger, “Nothing was decided!” Hanzo snaps, “We only discussed it once, that doesn’t mean I was going to do it!”

 

“No, but you were thinking about it!” Genji says.

 

“What was I supposed to say?” Hanzo shouts, and in the corner of his eye Genji sees the prison guard move closer to Hanzo’s chair, “Father was so ill and the Elders wanted me to do something! And it would have never been a problem at all if you’d remembered you had a duty to us! We wouldn’t be having this conversation at all if you had just been responsible - ”

 

“When did I stop being your brother and became a problem?” Genji interrupts, “You’re always going on and on about duty and honor and it’s all _bullshit_. Why did you care what I did? I never wanted what you had, I was happy doing my own thing but no, it wasn’t enough, it was never enough for you and those buzzards always hanging over Father - ”

 

“Don’t you dare!” Hanzo says, “Have some respect!”

 

“You don’t get to lecture me about respect after plotting to kill me!”

 

“Your time is up,” says the prison guard behind Hanzo. Genji knows he was scheduled for more time. He doesn’t care anymore.

 

Genji stands up, “It was nice seeing you, big brother,” he says, words soaked in venom.

 

“I have my duty,” Hanzo says, still as stone and voice just as cold, “What do you have?”

 

“I have a bed to myself in a room without bars,” Genji replies, “Which is more then what your duty earned you.”

 

He leaves the room, the prison, and wishes he could leave everything else too.

 

\---

 

They expect him to become a soldier.

 

From what he understands, Blackwatch is much more lax than Overwatch in its rules and regulations, but it’s still more military than he liked. He still has to wake up far too early for morning training drills and eats cafeteria food every day and is still confined to the base, as he’s still considered a criminal by much of the organization. He’s been promised that with more time he will earn Reyes’ trust he’ll gain more freedoms, but it all still feels like everything he tried to get away from back in Hanamura.

 

Out of one cage, into another.

 

But the alternative is a much more literal cage, so he bites his tongue and tolerates it as best he can.

 

\---

 

The first night he’s allowed to leave the base he goes into Zurich, and it takes him no time at all to find the nightlife. For the first time in months he spends his night as he wants: surrounded by beautiful people and loud music, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. (Except he can’t understand two-thirds of the conversations around him, he’s using a fake name he doesn’t know any of the drink brands no one knows his reputation he doesn’t know the words to the music - )

 

He wanders back to base only after he’s thoroughly exhausted and the high has mostly worn off. No one stops him, he put his fatigues back over his party clothes, back to being drab and boring and right now all he wants is to collapse into his bed and sleep for a hundred years.

 

Eventually he reaches his room, and a thumbprint on the door scanner gets him inside. His room isn’t much - a small bed, a table, chair, bathroom, not much else - but for his first couple months in Blackwatch he lived in the barracks with the other new recruits, and this was, by comparison, the height of luxury.

 

He’s decided he’s not even going to bother getting undressed. Wrinkled clothing is about the furthest thing from his mind. He wanders over the bed, ready to just flop down face first into the stiff pillow.

 

“You know what time it is?”

 

Genji draws a knife and spins to face the intruder, fumbling with the weapon for a moment, only to realize a moment tool late he’s pointing his blade at Commander Reyes. He’s leaning by the door to Genji’s room, arms crossed and frowning. He pays no attention to the knife as Genji hastily tries to put it away.

 

“Look, it’s late, you’re going to have a hangover, and I have places to be, so I’ll be quick,” Reyes begins, pushing off from the wall, “You’re not in trouble, I don’t care what you do when you’re off the clock. That’s not what this is about.”

 

Genji stares. This is not the lecture he was expecting.

 

“I’m not going to tell you how to run your life,” Reyes begins, “But you have a job to do, so you’d better be the soberest person in the unit in the morning, and the next morning, and all the mornings you’re working for me. I’m not going to expect you to be perfect, but there were people who didn’t like that I offered you an out, and I’d hate to be wrong about you. I’m not going say that I understand what you’re going through because I don’t. I’ve never been taken away from my home like you have, and frankly I don’t want to know. We got resources here, and people who genuinely want to see you go out there and kick ass, whether you believe that right now or not,” Reyes pauses, and waves a hand in front of Genji’s face, “Any of that sink in?”

 

“Think so?” Genji replies, though his confusion is mostly from the content of speech rather than any substances still in his system.

 

“Good enough for now, I usually have to give that talk a few times before it sticks anyway,” Reyes pats his shoulder, “Then I’ll see you in three hours,” and leaves, the door sliding closed soundlessly behind him.

 

Genji blinks, then checks the clock on the bedside table, and swears.


	4. Graft, Side B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short because uhhhhh..... 
> 
> Warning include graphic descriptions of injuries

The second time Jesse wakes up he remembers right away, and this time he doesn’t panic immediately.

 

He still can’t see, can barely move, and he doesn't know where he is, but at least this time he doesn't get knocked out again.

 

The doctor comes to speak with him again, to explain the extent of his injuries, and it was bad.

 

Severe damage to his eyes rendering him blind, plus partial hearing loss (one of his own flashbangs snatched and thrown directly into his face). His right arm reduced to mangled tissue, and could not be saved (a large metal hand crushing his shooting arm, splintered bone and pulverized flesh). Bullet wounds all down his torso, and some in his left leg (a firing squad, first to stop him from running away, then to exact punishment).

 

He was being kept on life support by the people who found him. Overwatch, the doctor says, and Jesse doesn’t know what to do with that. The heroes from the recruitment posters, the holovids, the shining beacons of hope he never believed in.

 

At least now he can guess who almost busted him all those years ago.

 

It’s not a comfort.

 

\---

 

They ask him if he wants revenge. He says no.

 

“Your buddies shot you up,” says the voice of a man who introduced himself as Commander Reyes. As in _The_ Gabriel Reyes, and it’s a lot to take in. Jesse can hear the strain in his voice as he nearly shouts to be heard, but to Jesse he still sounds like he’s underwater, “You sure you don’t want payback for what they did to you?”

 

“Nah,” Jesse says, and he means it. Speaking is difficult, between the damage to his lungs and the respirator muffling his voice, but he manages to croak out replies to the commander’s questions.

 

“If it’s not revenge you want,” Reyes says, “What about getting to see again? We have a state-of-the-art cybernetics department here,” Reyes explains, “Eyes, limbs, organs - agents who suffer serious injuries in the field can have lost function restored. We can do that for you too.”

 

Jesse wants that, wants it so bad, would agree to a lot of things if it meant not being trapped in his own body anymore, but he knows bait when he sees it.

 

“What’s the catch?” Jesse asks.

 

“We need intel on Deadlock,” Reyes says, and Jesse appreciates his honesty, no masking his intentions, “They’re getting too big and too powerful, and they need to be stopped. We know you were their leader’s right hand, we need everything you know.”

 

Jesse’s remaining hand clutches the bedsheets in a weak grip. Of course that’s why they went through all the trouble to keep him going.

 

“I’ll give you some time to think about it,” Reyes says, after a long pause, “But the offer won’t be there forever, I expect an answer when I come back tomorrow.”

 

He doesn’t hear Reyes leave, of course, but he doesn’t have to. Isolation is a new and close friend, since he’d tried to leave the gang.

 

It was a stupid idea, of course they wouldn’t have just let him leave. He’s the one who chickened out, everything got too big too quick for him, should’ve just - should’ve just done something, anything else. Obviously, too late for that now.

 

Now, more than anything, Jesse just doesn’t want to think about Deadlock ever again.

 

(The look on Ashe’s face was an open, bleeding thing. The accusation, she thought he’d been bought by someone, a jealous rival, the cops, why would he want to leave everything they built and now he’s not sure - )

 

Jesse don’t particularly want anything to do with Overwatch, especially if it means taking down his gang. His choices weren’t very good. He can either stay hooked up to machines in the dark for the rest of his life, or he can help dismantle the one thing he’d managed to make of his life, the only people who’d ever mattered.

 

Not much of a choice at all, really.

 

Out of one cage, into another.


End file.
